Cool Pineapple Ginger-Coconut Shrimp Souperfood Soup for Summer...now that's a mouthful!

It's summertime so nobody was interested in my post I wrote on thick, hearty stews. I'm guessing no one wants to read about soup either, so I came up with a recipe for a soup designed for summer. It can be served chilled, hot, lukewarm or at room temperature.

Why am I so insistent on soup in summer?

Soup is so good for you. It is mostly water, so it's filling but a less concentrated source of calories, but it retains all the micronutrients and benefits of all the foods cooked in the soup. When you cook foods, you must always be concerned that essential nutrients leach out, but in soup, they just leach out into the soup and you slurp them right up.

Soup is also an easy way to get your veggies down if you're not a big fan of veggies. If you can't stand to see them, puree them. I love chunks of onion in my soups, but if I'm craving a thick creamy soup, to make them creamier (without cream) I puree onions and celery to thicken them and give them a whitish creamy substance. I puree carrots in my recipe for chili and the kids never know they're eating carrots. Soups and stews are great venues for hiding healthy veggies.

Soup is just good for you on so many levels, and this is a souperfood soup for summer. What makes it a souperfood soup? Let me count the ways:

(1) it's loaded with turmeric which we've already talked about ad nauseum (read my original post on this blog: All that turmeric...) plus all manner of healthy spices that complement turmeric absorption and are filled with antioxidants

(2) shrimp is a great source of astaxanthin (read more about it at World's Healthiest Foods: WHF on Shrimp)

(3) it is sweetened with pineapple (which we talked about yesterday in the chocolate for breakfast post), and all its healthy bromelain (especially in that core)...if you don't like eating pineapple or pineapple cores, this is the way to get it in

(4) is has both  cooked and raw garlic and onion (those amazing alliums...) that I keep telling you are so good for you and you should eat them every day

(5) it has coconut oil and organic high-fat dairy, both of which should be consumed in small amounts daily

(6) it is thickened with flax seeds, soaked overnight (to optimize their nutrition), then pureed in a blender with the cold soup base

(7) it has raw ginger

Sounds complicated, I know, but it's not. It took me less than 30 minutes to make it, and it was divine.

COOL PINEAPPLE-GINGER-COCONUT SHRIMP SOUP FOR SUMMER

Ingredients for 1 large bowl for 1 person (double if there are 2 of you, triple for 3, etc.):

10 shrimp
4-5 cloves garlic
1 whole sweet onion
4 tbsp turmeric
3 tbsp unsweetened coconut
1 tbsp ground fresh ginger
2 tbsp simply organic curry powder (love its flavor)
1 tsp cardamom
1 tbsp coriander seed (toasted and ground)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp pink himalayan salt crystals
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp raw honey
1/4 cup flax seeds (soaked overnight  in 1/2 cup water)
1/4 cup half & half

First, as you saw in the photo above, I crushed and peeled the garlic cloves and cut up half a raw onion and put it aside with the raw shrimp (which I coated with turmeric so it could absorb the flavor while raw). Since I have learned not to heat or boil my turmeric, the best way to get its flavor into my shrimp is to allow them to sit together before cooking.

Also, you should always allow your garlic and onion to sit for five minutes after you crush/cut/peel them before cooking. The primary nutrients fully emerge within those first five minutes after cutting/crushing.

While those three jewels--shrimp, onion, garlic--were just sitting, I toasted my coriander seeds in a pan for a minute and then tossed them into my mortar and pestle and ground them up.

I put all my spices into my blender/Ninja with my half & half, water, half a raw onion, my soaked swollen flax seeds, raw ginger, coconut and fresh pineapple. That is my soup base, and I put it in the fridge to chill.

Then I went back to my half-onion, garlic and shrimp and put them in a pan with coconut oil to sautee until the onions and garlic were tender and the shrimp pink. I took the pan off the heat a minute then poured my chilled soup base into the pan.

Now, at that point, you choose how you want your soup: chilled, lukewarm or hot. I like mine lukewarm, so I stirred the chilled soup in the pot for a minute to slightly warm it (but not kill all the healthy nutrients with heat), then I poured it into my bowl. I could have cooked it just a minute longer to make it warm, and still not lost too many nutrients, but never leave turmeric and those other spices on high heat for longer than a few minutes or you will lose their antioxidant value.

I stir in a half-teaspoon of raw local honey right before eating it.

Top it with fresh parsley or cilantro. Souperfood soup. Yum.

**This soup, just like my Hangover Carrot recipe, has all the necessary ingredients in the famed Turmeric Hangover Cure (warm milk, fresh ginger, turmeric, cardamom, black pepper, cinnamon and honey). So if you drank too much the night before, this is a great soup to restore you to life when you wake up at noon the day after. Honestly, takes less than 30 minutes to throw together.